Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007: Redmond in Hot Pursuit of Your Accounting Business Microsoft's Chances in the Accounting World Wayne Kawamoto
Mainly Microsoft
MOAP offers tight integration with the upcoming Microsoft Office 2007 Small Business Edition. As it did last year, Microsoft touts the fact that the program's interface resembles that of Microsoft Office.
Of course, the interfaces in QuickBooks and Peachtree have evolved over time and are intuitive and easy to use. While some people will prefer the Microsoft Office 2007-style interface, it's not necessarily easier to learn and use than those in QuickBooks and Peachtree, even for longtime Office customers.
New sales features in Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007 list inventory items on eBay, check listing status and help you download and process orders
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The MOAP home page offers a great view of a company's fiscal status with a snapshot view that displays critical tasks, reminders, balances, and more. There's a handy cash flow analyzer and access to 60 or so reports that offer breakdowns into sales, profit and loss, item profitability, transactions, and more. These reports can also be customized with various filters.
The program does a great job of sharing data with Office applications. However, this is not as big of an advantage as one may expect because QuickBooks and Peachtree each have their own built-in export facilities.
Time and billing features allow employees to mark appointments in Outlook calendars as billable time and transfer the information to MOAP to create invoices. It's a great approach, but Intuit's Web-based time and billing submission system will appeal more to companies that have workers and contractors who don't use Outlook and are physically away from the office.
Microsoft has done a good job of making its installation fast and easy, which helps companies get up and running quickly. The inventory system does a good job tracking items, calculating value, and automatically updating quantities when creating invoices or accepting returns.
The program also handles foreign currency conversions to process transactions from international customers and vendors. The optional payroll service works with ADP to conveniently process payroll; calculate and file local, state, and federal taxes; and print checks.
Microsoft's Chances in the Accounting World
While MOAP has come a long way in the two years that it has been on the market, it's tough to seize market share from a dug-in, heavily entrenched QuickBooks. Perhaps this is the reason why Microsoft is offering its entry level accounting program, Office Accounting Express 2007, for free. The hope is that people will try it and eventually decided to upgrade to MOAP.
Office Accounting Express will appeal to small service and retail businesses that don't need MOAP's multi-user support, cash flow tools, multiple pricing levels, job costing, multi-currency support, inventory features, fixed asset manager, and additional reports.
When you consider QuickBooks' many add-on services and industry-specific versions, overall, QuickBooks offers more capabilities. On the other hand, you can evaluate Microsoft Office Accounting Express for free and decide if you like it. And if your small business sells goods on eBay, the integrated sales features may be reason to move to Microsoft.
Requirements and Cost
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007 requires a 1 Ghz or higher processor, 512 MB or more of RAM, 1 GB or larger hard drive, Microsoft Windows XP SP 2 or later, Microsoft Vista or Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP1 or higher.
Purchasing Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007 is a bit convoluted; first you must first download the Express version and then upgrade that edition to Professional. Upgrade price from Accounting Express to Microsoft Accounting Professional 2007 is $149.
Wayne Kawamoto has written over 800 articles, columns and reviews about computers, new technologies, the Internet and small businesses. Wayne has also published three books about upgrading PCs, building office networks and effectively using and troubleshooting notebook computers. You can contact him through his Web site at www.waynewrite.com.
